A Willing Heart
by Yellowtail555
Summary: "She knew then that she hated him because people liked him and because he was a Potter and because he was related to her—and not at all because her dad had told her too, because she did things on her own, she didn't do what others told her to do because she was her own person and she was independent." Rose hates him, she knows she does.


_Okay, so this is for Lady's The Pairing One Hour/ Hardest Challenge Ever for e2H which is to write a 2,000 word story in two hours but I… um… still had time and the story wasn't over yet so this is 3K and let me just say, this is the longest story I've ever written by a good 600 or so words. It's not epilogue compliant, however, and you'll soon see why. The prompts I used were: Help__**,**__ "Loyalty, honor, a willing heart, I can ask no more than that" and She/He turned around find him/her standing there. _

The first time she met him, they were seven and their families had never settled whatever problem they had with each other.

People change when they grow up, their parents had learned that lesson. It was the reason that her parents had filed for divorce and then got back together within the year and then separated again. Rose knew that once you were married, it didn't mean that your love was cemented forever.

It was the reason she didn't know her aunt and uncle until she was seven and then it was just a quick meeting to insure that their kids wouldn't grow up without knowing each other until Hogwarts.

They met at a park because the neutral territory would keep from aggressive behavior if one family thought that the other was intruding on their turf. Rose compared her family to the dogs she read about in behavioral books on the subject because the comparison seemed fair.

Albus was loud and her first impression of him wasn't a nice one for the first thing she saw of him, he was wrestling with his older brother for no real reason. It wasn't the wrestling that got to her, as much as the fact that he had no motive and his parents didn't appear to care at all. She tapped her mum on the shoulder, even though her mum seemed to be more preoccupied with the act of glaring at her Aunt Ginny from her spot beside Uncle Harry on a park bench a few feet away.

"Leave it, Rosie. Go play with the boys."

"They're wrestling for no reason."

"Then go show them how its done."

Thinking back, Rose realized that Albus's first impression of her wasn't probably the best, either because she grabbed the collar of his jacket and hauled him away from his brother.

"You're an idiot."

"Let go of me." He spun around and knocked her to the ground.

He looked ashamed of himself but she didn't give him a chance for that because she knocked his legs out from under him and stood up with a tiny bit more respect for her cousin. Her mum may have been known as the brightest witch of her age but she probably should have been the most aggressive.

Albus's little sister, Lily, ran up to her and tried to push her over but Rose pushed her away gently and went to find her brother who was hiding behind a tree because their dad had told him not to interact with Uncle Harry's kids too much. Ron was sitting on the other side of the park from everyone else and Rose waved at him as she passed and he grinned at her. They got him on weekends and while Rose loved her mum, Ron- he'd let her call him by his first name when she turned six, which she thought was the coolest thing _ever-_ was probably the more fun parent.

Her mum had taught her self-defense since she could walk but Ron had taught her to fly, which she didn't much like, and how to play gobstones, which she did, and the key behind Wizard Chess, along with the story from his first year that he always liked to talk about, minus Uncle Harry and her mum. She knew that he set high standards for her but she didn't care because she could fill them. She could be somebody.

She next saw Albus on the Hogwarts Express for their first year and it was completely an accident. She turned around to find him standing there and glaring at her.

She waved, smiling at him, but it wasn't a warm smile, and then went off to find a compartment with Louis. He beat her there, though, and when she went in, she saw the two of them talking and almost turned around and walked out.

"Hey, Rosie, this is Al. Have you met him?"

She'd never felt like he was family but that sentence made him even more distant.

"Yeah, I know him."

Albus glared at her. "You're the girl that tried to beat me up."

"I am indeed. Great detective skills. Except for one slight problem, I didn't _try_ to beat you up. I did."

She pulled out a book about astrology and settled down for the ride. She'd always preferred non-fiction, at least it didn't spin the tale of a life that would never be like hers.

He got sorted before her, which she knew would happen but it still annoyed her because he was sorted into Gryffindor and that was where she was going and couldn't he have had the decency to get sorted into another House. He didn't even have to be in Slytherin if he didn't want to be, she was fine with him in Ravenclaw or Hufflepuff or anywhere other than the house she wanted.

Louis was sorted into Ravenclaw and she considered joining him but the Sorting Hat didn't even ask her, it sorted her into Gryffindor the second she put it on. The table cheered for her-although not as loudly as they cheered for Albus, she noted—and Molly waved her down. She didn't feel like commenting on the fact that Fred and Dominique didn't even seem to notice her because they were talking to Albus.

She knew then that she hated him because people liked him and because he was a Potter and because he was related to her—and not at all because her dad had told her too, because she did things on her own, she didn't do what others told her to do because she was her own person and she was independent.

She realized that he might almost have a heart when she was in third year.

He was still Albus Potter and he was still a git and she still hated him but she was starting to see why others might not.

He was _kind_ and it would be so much easier to hate him if he wasn't. He talked to first years instead of ignoring them and he did his homework on time and he stood up to people. He wasn't like her.

He wasn't so obsessed about being someone important that he didn't focus on anything else other than doing well in school and being remembered.

She wasn't doing so well at being remembered. She thought she might be in the running for Prefect in her fifth year but she snuck around at night because there wasn't enough time in the day to be remembered.

And she got into fights, which she wasn't proud to admit. She knew her mum was ashamed of her and she was ashamed of herself because that wasn't why her mum had taught her this but she was trying to do something.

Albus always stopped her before she could really get at the kid, who generally hadn't done much besides cheating off someone in class, and that was probably why he was considered kind. He always hauled her away from the kid and bound her wrists together with magic and pulled her away from the fight.

She always felt like she was going to jail, and that was probably where she'd end up after Hogwarts, anyways.

He always gave her a talk once they were out in the courtyard without many others around or in a corridor when no one else was there or somewhere else private. He released her and told her that she needed to get ahold of herself and that she needed help if she couldn't stop.

He didn't bring their families into it or how much she hated him or anything like that. He just leaned against the wall and looked at her, curiously, when he was done. She figured he probably would have done the same for anyone, related or not.

He didn't try to make it personal but she did. She stood there and yelled at him, telling him about how much she hated him and about how he shouldn't interfere with her life and how she wished she'd never met him.

He always took it calmly, just standing there and listening, sometimes even smiling at her, like she was amusing.

She hated him for that, because he would laugh at her, like he had the right to. She was Rose Weasley and he couldn't laugh at her and she was going to pretend he wasn't related to her no matter what. But she could still see why some people liked him, even if she didn't like to admit it.

It was in her fifth year that she first kissed him and she still hated him, she knew that she did. She was probably just crazy, and that's why she kissed him.

She wasn't made a Prefect. That was the first thing she knew about her fifth year when she received her Hogwarts letter in the mail and there wasn't a Prefect badge attached. It hurt but she didn't admit it so she put on a brave face to her mum and took Hugo to go get his school supplies with her. It was the first time that they'd gone alone and she lost him when he was looking at getting food for his owl and she wandered off to find a new book.

She did find a book, one she'd wanted to read for years but had never been able to because her mum had always been around. It was a biography, one about her parents and what they had done in the Second Wizarding War. Sure, she'd heard stories from her parents but never the whole, uncensored thing. They both took out Uncle Harry and occasionally, each other and she wanted to know the truth. She also got an old book, _The Life and Lies of Albus Dumbledore_, that she'd heard her mum talk about and which sounded like it'd convey some more truth, because that was what she was in the mood for. The truth. She got some book about farming, too, in case her mum asked what she'd gotten. Hugo found her as she was checking out and found her secret purchases and promised not to tell, as long as she let him read them after her.

She hugged him because she knew she was lucky to have him.

The next thing she knew about her fifth year, as she rode in the compartment with Hugo, Lucy, and Lily, who may have been Albus's little sister but who still seemed decent, was that Albus had been made Prefect.

She stood up, abruptly. "I need to congratulate him."

Lily looked at her strangely but shrugged. "Have fun pushing through the masses."

"Oh, not that many people care about your brother." Rose muttered but she was proven wrong because he was surrounded by people, blushing and thanking them.

Louis pushed through everyone and ended up beside Rose. "What are you doing here?"

"Need to congratulate him."

"You?" Louis gave her a look but shrugged and grabbed her arm, pulling her through everyone.

The next thing she knew, she was in front of him and he was looking at her, curiously. She was sick of that, sick of people questioning him, and so it seemed only right to do what she did next.

She reached out and slapped him.

It wasn't that hard, or anything, it was more the fact that she did it more than anything that was important.

Then everyone mobbed her and she lost track of him because people were crowding around her and some people were glaring at her or trying to trip her or pull her hair or something. She pulled out of the crowd and ran. She locked herself up in the train's bathroom and ignored the people pounding on the door to hurry up and when they reached Hogwarts, she almost just stayed in the bathroom and let herself go back to London.

She would have but Hugo realized she was missing and finally found her in the bathroom and made her come out.

That was the night that she cut her hair short for the first time since she was five and put on makeup and went to find Albus during his patrol at night. She did and for a second he didn't recognize her and in that second, she kicked out a foot and knocked his legs out from under him and then crouched down and slapped him.

"This for everything, Albus. This is for your family and for your past and your future and for everyone who loves you blindly."

"Maybe you hate me blindly." He hissed up at her and she slapped him again, relishing the feeling.

"Maybe it's not your turn to talk."

He sat up a bit on his elbows and smirked at her.

"What do you think you're doing?" She whispered.

"What do you mean? I'm sitting up. There's not a law against that, is there?"

He wasn't listening to her. He didn't care about her and that meant she wasn't in control of him and for a crazy second, she thought she knew how to control him. In that crazy second, that actually lasted for at least a minute, she leaned down and kissed him.

As soon as she did it, she snapped out of it and realized what she was doing. And what scared her was that he hadn't pulled away. So she pulled away and glared at him.

He shrugged. "_You_ kissed _me. _Figured you wanted it."

"We're cousins!"

He laughed. "Hardly. Look at us. Besides me yelling at you to stop beating people up, which you really need to quit, by the way, this is probably the fourth time we've talked, _ever_. The third time was on the train which was a rather…" He shook his head. "It was a surprise."

"Why? You know that I hate you."

"Was that what that was?" He shook his head. "You're forgetting something, Rosie Dear. You don't hate me. You hate my family because your family tells you to."

"No. No, this is not a stupid Romeo and Juliet cliché."

"Too true." He stood up. "I hate that story. Don't even try to tell me it's romantic."

"What is romance then?"

He considered it. "Romance is freedom. Romance is being best friends with someone who you can talk to and who you don't have to change to please. Romance is loving someone, always, even if you hate them while you do it. Romance is like fire, everlasting and unpredictable. Romance is like water, always changing and yet always the same. Romance is like earth, solid and predictable. Romance is like air, always there and what keeps you alive. Romance is the biggest of all contradictions and a million clichés and sappy movies and fighting. Romance is kissing someone and never wanting to stop and it's smiling whenever you see someone. Romance is good and pure."

She looked at him as though for the first time. "I don't love you."

"Good news, I don't love you either. But I might be able to in the future."

She shook her head. "No, we're cousins. And besides, I hate you."

"Haven't you heard, Darling. We're not really cousins, not officially."

She turned. "What?"

"Your parents are divorced and while your father has visiting rights, your mother has main custody and she's not related to my parents at all."

"Good to know. I don't have to put up with you, then, because you're not my cousin. See you later."

She rather thought that would be the last time she'd see him, which kind of made her sad because it was him telling her that she wasn't related to anyone on her dad's side of the family, not really.

"Fuck you," she whispered, even though she knew he wouldn't hear. She wanted those to be her last words to him.

They weren't.

Three years later, once they were out of Hogwarts, she found herself dating him. She didn't love him and she knew that but she did like him and like he said, maybe she'd love him in the future. That thought made her feel better.

She hated to admit that she was the one who asked him out. She thought it was better when it was him who liked her but one day she was feeling especially reckless, she floo-ed to his parents' house. She'd never been there before and she had to admit, it was a nice place. It wasn't as big as she'd imagined and seemed a lot nicer. She hadn't thought they'd lived in an evil fortress or anything but it looked like somewhere that she could see her parents living. And for the first time ever, she could imagine their parents being best friends in the past.

She had hugged her Aunt Ginny, who told her that she looked very grown up and asked her about her plans and told her that she was proud of her. Then she hugged her Uncle Harry, even though he looked reluctant, and told him that she knew what he had done for the Wizarding World, finally, since she'd put off reading that book after the encounter with Albus, and that she thought he was the bravest man she ever knew.

He laughed at that. "Not brave, Rose. I just did what I had to."

"That doesn't affect how brave you are. I hope I can do something good like that." She'd never let go of her goal to be remembered one day, she'd just put it aside, but now she thought it would be a good time to bring it front and center again.

They didn't talk about her parents at all and she rather thought she liked her Aunt and Uncle, even though that felt like treason. She was going to have to tell Hugo to visit them.

She was still a bit scared but she went upstairs and knocked on Albus's door. He opened it, surprised when he saw her.

"Rose?"

"The very same."

"What are you doing here?"

"I understand if you've moved on, I get it, but you said that you were working on loving me and I just wanted to say that I've been working, too. And I just wanted to say, that I don't hate you anymore."

He looked at her, a bit confused. "That's… nice?"

"No, I mean. It's not that I don't hate you as much as the fact that I like you and I… I mean, only if you want to, but would you… want to go out with me?"

He looked back at her. "Loyalty, honor, a willing heart, I can ask no more than that."

"Is that a yes?"

He nodded. "That's a yes."

She threw her arms around him and hoped someday she'd learn to love him because he deserved someone who could love him and she wanted to give him that because even though he could have done better, he'd chosen her and the least she could do would be to love him.

_I'm not sure whether Rose and Al would technically have been cousins or not, I think they probably would still have been but I'm not sure, but that was the only way to progress the story. I just wanted to say not to take that as true and to please read and review. I hope you enjoyed it._


End file.
